


are we out of the woods yet? [are we in the clear yet?]

by leothequeenn



Category: 11 Drunk Guys (Video Blogging RPF), ABOP (YouTube RPF), Pwnagemcgee (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mythology, F/M, M/M, and there's good plants and trees lol, basically there's a bad tree/plant, some dryad stuff because why not :), yes? i think so? yeah
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6095110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leothequeenn/pseuds/leothequeenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>the monsters turned out to be just trees...</i>
</p><p> </p><p>or</p><p>alex1 accidentally travels deep inside a mystical forest and frees a dryad trapped in wood and he ends up basically having the hugest crush on the girl he freed (even if the outdoors aren’t his thing).</p>
            </blockquote>





	are we out of the woods yet? [are we in the clear yet?]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pantypantypantypantypantypantyhoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pantypantypantypantypantypantyhoes/gifts).



> for Pantypantypantypantypantypantyhoes because she loves grace as much as i love grace (and that’s a lot). plus i miss her. love u blue

Alex wasn’t an outdoor person. He spent most of his time cooped up inside, playing video games and getting drunk like his friends did whenever they hung out. Even during preschool he hated being outside (but that was because everything was bigger than him and it freaked him out) and as he got older, he discovered that it wasn’t going to change. Well, whenever he was starting to get adventurous, then it was different. Then he wouldn't want to go inside. But whenever it wasn't that perfect weather, he hated being outside in the summer because while it wasn’t too hot, he would still get sunburnt. He hated being outside in the winter because, well -- it was _winter_. In Edmonton, winter was hell. Winter in Edmonton, you had to have survival kits (at least that was how Alex felt).

And yeah, he liked chilling in the snow every once and awhile, but then it would get old and he’d go back inside and play some stupid game that would entertain him a lot more than snowballs.

He also hated the word snowballs. Who came up with that anyway? Probably not some perverted person. Or maybe it was, and they were just joking but look where that got them?

Whatever.

But the thing he hated the most about being outside wasn’t the possible risk of being burnt or being frozen, but it was those _woods_. The woods behind his house, that had an entryway with a Victorian styled fence that no one knew how it got there. The woods far behind his own wooden fence, but they still somehow were on his property and he _hated_ them. Loathed them. Since seventh grade, actually, whenever an eighth grader that he was hanging out with went into the woods and was only in there a matter of five minutes before he was being chased out by nothing. When the eighth grader swore there were things in there that moved, that chased him out and retreated before anyone else could see, that was the day Alex swore to never go inside of the dark place with the tall trees.

Having woods by a neighborhood wasn’t all that weird, but it was still actually very weird how those woods _chased_ a boy out of them. Of course, Alex pretended not to be phased by how the eighth grader acted, God, eighth graders were such _scaredy-cats_ , but honestly, deep down he was absolutely terrified.

He didn’t know if he would be the next one to be chased out, or worse, trapped inside of them. So, Alex pretended it didn’t exist. He hated them. He hated being near them. His parents just always thought he was anti-social since he didn’t go out in his backyard or play with the neighbor kids. His friends called him a vampire.

Alex ignored it all, pretend the words didn’t exist because they didn’t know what happened in those woods and they didn’t see the eighth grader’s face whenever he finally looked back up at the smaller boy. His eyes were wide, he was out of breath, and he was shaking. He was scared. God, Alex could remember it clearly.

It wasn’t like he didn’t go outside, it was just that he didn’t go outside in his backyard. Of course, he was reluctant to going outside anyway, but his backyard was another story. He hated being in sight of those stupid woods. It didn’t help that his bedroom was right by those woods, in front of them even. His room was on the back side of the house anyway, so the view was grass, the deck, the trampoline and those woods. Every night he’d look at them. Every morning he’d glare at them.

Alex was sure those woods gave him nightmares, like it was a sign. He sounded crazy, and that was why he never told any of his friends, especially his parents. Ever. He sounded insane, and they’d surely lock him up or at least send him to a therapist. But people can be scared of woods, right? They’d give people nightmares right? Like, what about all those crime investigation shows? Some of them showed people getting murdered in the woods! It was a common fear, wasn’t it?

He just didn’t feel like telling anyone that he thought those woods, specifically, gave him nightmares. He’d look at them before falling asleep, and he’d always blame the stupid trees whenever he’d wake up. Though, that wasn’t even the crazy part. It was the fact that it seems like it was calling for him that made him probably insane. It drove him crazy, really, it was so aggravating because he didn’t understand what it wanted and hell, even to this day he _still_ didn’t know what it wanted.

Maybe it didn’t want anything. Maybe it did. Alex didn’t know. He moved away his freshmen year of college. He couldn’t stand living in that house by those stupid woods, and so he moved away at the first opportunity that he could get. And eventually, the nightmares stopped. He would have them frequently for about three months after he moved, but they seemed cold and desperate, like the trees themselves were looking for him (which always gave him the creeps). But as time went on, they dissipated. Disappeared. It was like they never existed, like the thought of the woods mocking him and looking for him never appeared in his dreams.

Honestly. Alex was glad.

He didn’t have the nightmares. He didn’t have any reason to, really, since he kind of forgot about what they looked like, too. There were sometimes whenever he’d be sleeping and he’d see some kind of leaf falling, and he’d immediately wake up and try to focus on something else. He didn’t want to deal with it. So he’d push it away. Fortunately, with him being so far away from the house, it was easier to do.

And eventually, it got warmer as it always did in summer, and even though Alex hated being sweaty and being at the risk of burning his skin, he spent it outside. He talked to people. He wasn’t haunted by those stupid woods for the first time since seventh grade. The woods before then, of course, weren’t that scary. Until it was ‘uncool’ to play outside in the woods (so like, sixth grade) Alex would always be out in those woods until lunch time. He’d wake up early and head outside, telling his mother that he was an adventurer and needed to go to the jungle. It was fun. There wasn’t anything inside of those woods that would ever chase someone out of them.

They were safe, or at least Alex felt like they were. He felt okay in them. Except for the times where he was dumb and he fell over a bunch of times and hurt himself more.

But now they just haunted him. He hated them. And he hated the nightmares that had him constantly wondering if the woods were really calling out to him, or if he was just going insane. But they were gone. The dreams were gone.

Well, apparently, not completely.

 

* * *

 

“Paulie, if you don’t get off my back right now, I’m going to stand up.” Alex muttered to his cat as he was lying down in his bed, his stomach pressed up against the mattress. “Just watch me, I’ll do it.” It was three AM and he had left his door open while working on a video for Youtube, and he had apparently forgot to shut it since his cat came in ten minutes before he went to bed. Figuring the cat would just leave, he left the door open while he brushed his teeth and climbed into bed, setting his glasses down on the nightstand, but Paulie had quickly joined him and sat on his back. “Paulie, come on…”

The cat just meowed, kneading his paws into his owner’s back and Alex knew that he wasn’t getting anywhere with this. Might as well just go to sleep then. If he moves in the middle of his sleep, which he knew he did, then that wasn’t really his fault, was it? Nope.

“Well then, goodnight Paulie.” Alex huffed, pressing his cheek into the pillow. The things he does for his cat, honestly. The cat meowed as a response, and moved further up his back, by his shoulders, before Alex could feel him lay his head down on the back of his neck. He could feel him purring, and it honestly calmed him down a bit.

And after that, he was in a deep sleep.

 

* * *

 

Alex could tell whenever he was dreaming or whenever he was in just a state of consciousness, surrounded by just black and tiny lights flickering. But that time, he was dreaming. He was sure of it. He didn’t know how much that he would remember in the morning, if he even wanted to remember, but whatever. He knew he was dreaming. His mind was in autopilot, bursting to life like it had control of whatever he wanted to dream. His body was still.

The dream started to form and he was standing in a brightly lit room, but the walls were moving. There was heat on his back, on his arms and his neck, but it didn’t bother him as much. It was probably sunlight. He was inside. Only, if he looked closer, and dream Alex did look closer, he wasn’t.

He wasn’t inside. The moving walls, those were green leaves, swaying in the wind. A breeze that swept past him confirmed it. Alex, in a state of panic, tried to tell himself to wake up, but it was different. Dream Alex wasn’t scared. It was peaceful. There wasn’t anything wrong, there wasn’t anything chasing him, any dark lit place telling him there was danger. It was bright, sunny, breezy.

It was nice.

Curious, Alex was confused and wanted to know exactly what the dream was going to end up like. So, he just let his dream him be the guide, and shut off any other part of him that would tell him otherwise.

And he was basically in the dark from then on, clueless and helpless.

Dream Alex continued on, walking forward into a path that seemed to lead on forever. He didn’t know where he was heading, but somehow that was everything. That was exciting and scary and he didn’t know why, but it was fascinating. He didn’t know what he was getting into or what he was going to see. This was a dream, and anything was bound to happen, but he didn’t quite want anything to happen because then he’d have to go see if it were _real_. If it actually happened in the woods and he just didn’t know about it.

Why was he even thinking about that anyway? He shouldn’t be worrying about it.

Dream Alex walked into a circle clearing in the middle of the woods and saw a rose bush that seemed oddly familiar. He knew that rose bush from somewhere, with its tangled thorns all over the place. As if his dream self knew what he was thinking, he looked at his hand. There were little scars over the palm, fingers and even on the back of his hand, and Dream Alex had a chance to stuff his hand back into his pocket before the rose bush moved. And then moved again. The roses continued to grow and spin as the plant itself got bigger, thorns and branches extending outwards toward him. Dream Alex ran off, further into the pathway and away from the clearing. He tripped over something, maybe a branch or his own two feet, but he landed hard and scraped up his knees and palms.

The pain was unbearable, Alex didn’t need to have Dream Alex interpret it. He’s felt it before, but he couldn’t remember where. But Dream Alex still got up, blood dripping from his knees and hands. He still didn’t know how he’d cut up his knees or hands that badly, or why it hurt so bad, but his dream self carried on, walked on until he found a Willow Tree to lean on.

“ _Alex._ ”

The voice was new, but it was distorted, distant. Like it was far away, but in the dream, the voice’s location couldn’t have been two inches away from him. It was like the bark was talking to him, using his mind. Weird.

“ _Alex, I-I know you’re there._ ” The voice continued as Dream Alex slid down the trunk of the tree. The branches moved slightly, opposing the wind, and Alex could feel himself breathing faster. He didn’t know how fast his dream-self was breathing, but it was probably about the same. “ _I can’t see you anymore. Where are you?_ ”

That sent chills down his spine. He thought he was _done_ with nightmares involving the woods. Now a fucking tree was talking to him. Someone should make this a video game. If only it didn’t suck as bad.

Dream Alex was literally sitting there, cross-legged and bleeding out from his knees, his hands, but he was relaxed. Like talking to trees was normal. Alex tried to talk through his dream-self, and surprisingly, it worked. At least that was one thing he had going for him.

“I left.” Dream Alex said for himself, and the way the branches draped themselves over him made Alex feel like a giant asshole. The tree was comforting him and he was just being a dick. There was something familiar about the tree, or maybe the whole bleeding situation, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. “I left my home. I’m gone. I’m somewhere new.”

There was a scream that echoed into Dream Alex’s ear, before a, “ _Hurry, please!_ ” and that time Alex was ripped out of the dream as he bolted upright in his bed, eyes wide open.

Paulie had made a soft mewl off to the right of him, as if wondering what had happened, and Alex grabbed him and pulled him closer to him, trying to get his breathing pattern regular again. He knew there were dreams that were similar to that, but never to the extent where a tree was screaming. But it didn’t sound like it was screaming at him, it just sounded like it was screaming in agony. Like something was happening to it.

And the plea to tell him to hurry sent shivers down his spine because _that’s_ never happened before. It was strange.

“That was weird,” he voiced out loud, and Paulie quickly climbed onto his lap. “Thanks.”

The cat meowed in response, as if he were talking back to him, but Alex didn’t really care. In fact, he pulled the cat closer to him, his fingers still trembling. He could’ve sworn he had heard that voice before. He didn’t know when, but she was in those woods somewhere. He knew her, somehow.

And that was what was so unnerving about it.

 

* * *

 

 

Alex surprisingly made it through the night without waking up again, but that was because he could get past the screaming tree. He actually made it past it, past _her_ , to have the dream fade out and turn blank. He wasn’t dreaming anymore, and he wasn’t going to remember anything. But as he continued on, there was a flicker of light. He was terrified but he continued on toward the flickering light, eventually coming out of a mass of leaves, and he saw a hill with dead grass surrounding it. He didn’t know why, but it all looked...out of place. The dead leaves and the grass looked like it didn’t belong there, and he couldn’t figure out why.

He didn’t like the big tree in the middle of the hill, though, with a whole bunch of tiny shrubs surrounding it. He didn’t know why, but he assumed the tiny shrubs were poisonous, but it didn’t look like it was smothering the tree. The oak tree was living just fine. That was probably what bothered him the most about this part of the dream. Maybe the shrubs weren’t poisonous? He wasn’t going to go and find out, either. Maybe the tree and the shrubs actually benefit each other in some way, even though that was probably impossible.

He turned back whenever he heard a scream, and he realized that it was that damn willow tree screaming for him again. He glanced back at the oak tree before heading off, back toward where he came from -- wherever that may be. He didn’t quite know where he was going, anyway. He just followed the sound of the girl screaming her heart out like she was in pain, because he had to go see her. He had to see what was so bad. He had to go see what was bothering her so much.

He walked back using the pathway which he hoped leaded to her, and even if it didn’t, he could probably figure out how to get to her. He followed the screams, moved trees and branches out of the way so he could continue walking toward her.

He managed to see the willow tree from a distance, but as he stepped closer to it, to _her_ , he could see those shrubs that he saw back by the oak tree, but it was different. The shrubs were smothering her, and making her leaves wilt.

Alex woke up after that.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed it ♥


End file.
